“Two hundred!” Kipper exclaimed. “Chuckie, you’re nuts. The woman tripped over her own damn dachshund.”
“Kip, they’ll settle,” the other lawyer said. “It’s the biggest grocery chain in Florida, they always settle. Besides, the dog croaked—that’s fifty grand right there for mental anguish.”
“But dogs aren’t even allowed in the store, Chuckie. If it was somebody else’s dachshund she tripped on, then we’d really have something. But this was her own fault.”
Sardonic laughter crackled over the speaker box. “Kip, buddy, you’re not thinking like a litigator,” the voice said. “I went to the supermarket myself and guess what: No signs!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean no No Dogs Allowed-type signs. Not a one posted in Spanish. So how was our poor Consuelo to know?”
“Chuckie, you’re beautiful,” said Kipper Garth. “If that ain’t negligence—”
“Two hundred thou,” Chuckie said, “that’s my guess. We’ll split sixty-forty.”
“Nope,” Kipper Garth said, staring coldly at the speaker box. “Half-and-half. Same as always.”
“Excuse me.” It was Mick Stranahan. Kipper Garth frowned and shook his head; not now, not when he was closing the deal. The voice on the phone said: “Kip, who’s that? You got somebody there?”
“Relax, Chuckie, it’s just me,” Stranahan said to the box. “You know—Kipper’s heroin connection? I just dropped by with my briefcase full of Mexican brown. Can I pencil you in for a kilo?”
Frantically Kipper Garth jabbed two fingers at the phone buttons. The line went dead and the speaker box hummed the dial tone. “You’re fucking crazy,” he said to Mick Stranahan.
“I’ve got a plane to catch, Jocko. Where are the Graveline files?”
“You’re crazy,” Kipper Garth said again, trying to stay calm. He buzzed for a secretary, who lugged in three thick brown office folders.
“There’s a conference room where you can read this shit in private.”
Mick Stranahan said, “No, this is fine.” With Kipper Garth stewing, Stranahan skimmed quickly through the files on Rudy Graveline. It was worse than he thought—or better, depending on one’s point of view.
“Seventeen complaints to the state board,” Stranahan marveled.
“Yeah, but no action,” Kipper Garth noted. “Not even a reprimand.”
Stranahan looked up, lifting one of the files. “Jocko, this is a gold mine.”
“Well, Mick, I’m glad I could help. Now, if you don’t mind, it’s getting late and I’ve got a few calls to make.”
Stranahan said, “You don’t understand, I wanted this stuff for you, not me.” Peevishly Kipper Garth glanced at his wristwatch. “You’re right, Mick, I don’t understand. What the hell do I want with Graveline’s files?”
“Names, Jocko.” Stranahan opened the top folder and riffled the pages dramatically. “You got seventeen names, seventeen leads on a silver platter. You got Mrs. Susan Jacoby and her boobs that don’t match. You got Mr. Robert Mears with his left eye that won’t close and his right eye that won’t open. You got, let’s see, Julia Kelly with a shnoz that looks like a Phillips screwdriver—Jesus, you see the Polaroid of that thing? What else? Oh, you got Ken Martinez and his lopsided scrotum … “
Kipper Garth waved his arms. “Mick, that’s enough! What would I want with all this crap?”
“I figured you’ll need it, Jocko.”
“For what?”
“For suing Doctor Rudy Graveline.”
“Very funny,” Kipper Garth said. “I told you, the man’s in my yacht club. Besides, he’s been sued before.”
“Sue him again,” Mick Stranahan said. “Sue the mother like he’s never been sued before.”
“He’d settle out. Doctors always settle.”
“Don’t let him. Don’t settle for anything. Not for ten million dollars. Sign up one of these poor misfortunate souls and go to the frigging wall.”
Kipper Garth stood up and adjusted his necktie, suddenly on his way to some important meeting. “I can’t help you, Mick. Get yourself another lawyer.”
“You don’t do this favor for me,” said Stranahan, “and I’ll go tell Katie about your trip to Steamboat next month with Inga or Olga or whatever the hell her name is, I got it written down here somewhere. And for future reference, Jocko, don’t ever put your ski bunny’s plane tickets on American Express. I know it’s convenient and all, but it’s very, very risky. I mean, with the computers they got these days, I can pull out your goddamned seat assignments—5A and 5B, I think it is.”